Malwarebytes Antivirus Review 2024: Is It Worth the Hype?

Malwarebytes is mid-tier antivirus software that takes minimal effort to learn and use. Our tests showed it to be quick and effective, but more rigorous third-party testing found middling results.

It has a free antivirus plan with a virus scanner and malware removal tools if you're on a budget, but upgrading to the Malwarebytes Premium plan or the Premium + Privacy plan will give you many more features. These include a virtual private network (VPN) and a web security browser that blocks phishing attempts, trackers, pop-up ads, and other exploits.

While it may not be the best antivirus around, Malwarebytes lets you try the Premium versions for free for 14 days and you get a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Learn more about pricing plans, features, third-party test results and more in our Malwarebytes review.

Malwarebytes antivirus overview

Price	Free–$119.99/yr
# of devices protected	1-20 for the paid versions, 1 for free
Malware scans	Free version: Manual scans only Premium version: Manual and scheduled scans
Real-time protection	Yes
EICAR test results	3/3
Firewall	No
Phishing protection	Yes
Compatibility	Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Chromebook
Extras	VPN, identity theft protection
24/7 customer support	Yes
Details	Get Malwarebytes

Our experience

Our Malwarebytes Premium experience was mostly a pleasant journey with an easy-to-use interface and fast scanning capability.

We ran multiple virus scans, with the longest one clocking in at 1 minute and 45 seconds and scanning almost 237,000 files. Though the speed is impressive compared to other software we've tested, it does beg the question if it's doing a good job.

It did raise 11 threats, which were mostly leftover files from SlickVPN, a sketchy VPN service we tested. None of the other virus scans we found so far had alerted us to those, including Norton 360 and Microsoft Defender, so happy to clean up our drive at the very least. 

The TotalAV catch was a bit of a false positive, though, since TotalAV is one of our top-rated antiviruses. But it was just flagged as a low-threat-level potentially unwanted program (PUP), so likely just Malwarebytes being cautious.

Quarantining and then deleting the files they flagged was just a click of the button, which was nice and felt good to get some residual files off our drive.

We also ran a "Quick" scan and they weren't messing around — it only took 5 seconds to scan about 4,000 files. Nothing was caught there, but they only target key areas of your device, like startup objects and your memory.

Finally, the custom scan option allows you to narrow in on specific areas of your computer you want to target, including specific drives and folders.

Apart from scanning, Malwarebytes was able to catch some fake malware we threw at it, all while sitting quietly in the background, easily forgotten about. That's what we want from an antivirus.

Who is Malwarebytes best for?

• Recommend for people who want a solid antivirus program with a few bonus features at an affordable price.

If you want to protect your device but don’t want to spend a fortune on extras you may not need, Malwarebytes may have the right level of security you’re looking to get. While it may not have all the bells and whistles that an antivirus program like Norton claims to have, Malwarebytes does have a regularly updated database. That gives you more security because it can catch the latest malware threats.

When you get Malwarebytes, you can opt for the free version, which comes with the basic on-demand scanning feature, or the paid plans, which gives you ongoing threat protection. Because even the paid plans start at $24.99/yr, we think Malwarebytes is a good choice if you want some peace of mind without paying a fortune.

Malwarebytes cost

Malwarebytes price ranges from Free–$119.99/yr. You can get the free version of Malwarebytes if all you want is on-demand scanning and virus removal.

When you need other features, such as scheduled scans and real-time protection, you should opt for Malwarebytes Standard or Malwarebytes Plus. The Malwarebytes Plus plans also come with the Privacy VPN.

Premium plans for one device start at $24.99/yr, and go up to $119.99/yr. Other antivirus systems such as Norton Antivirus cost about the same.

You can get cheaper options, though. Bitdefender has a yearly plan for $29.99/yr (first year only). Still, we think getting Malwarebytes is worth the minimal cost when considering how fast the scans run.

Malwarebytes plans and prices

	Malwarebytes Free	Malwarebytes Standard	Malwarebytes Plus	Malwarebytes Ultimate
Price per month	Free	$24.99/yr	$29.99/yr	$119.99/yr
# devices supported	1	1–20	1-20	1-20
Manual and auto scan	Manual only	Manual and auto scan	Manual and auto scan	Manual and auto scan
Ransomware protection
Phishing protection
Real-time protection
Ad blocker
VPN
Identity theft protection
Details	View plan	View plan	View plan	View plan

Malwarebytes Premium features

When you upgrade to a premium Malwarebytes plan, you can expect a few more features to really sweeten the deal. Here are the main things to be aware of.

Malware and antivirus scan

Both Malwarebytes Free and Malwarebytes Premium versions allows you to run manual anti-malware scans. But if you want automatic scanning, you’ll need to spring for the Premium edition.

The Scheduled Scans feature is highly customizable and offers hourly, daily, and weekly scans. 

Phishing protection

Malwarebytes Premium offers phishing protection, but the free version is for regular clean-up functions missed by other antivirus software.

You get phishing protection if you download the browser extension, called Malwarebytes Browser Guard. It was able to successfully warn of us of our test phishing site, while also allowing us to easily bypass if it got it wrong:

Real-time protection

Malwarebytes Premium does come with real-time protection, which covers four protection layers:

• Web protection: Protection from online scams, phishing sites, and ransomware sites
• Malware and PUP protection: Protection from malware, viruses, adware, potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), and other cyberthreats
• Ransomware protection: Protection from ransomware, which locks you out of your device and files
• Exploit protection: Protection from malware that usesbugs and vulnerabilities in a system for hacking

The Real-Time Protection feature is simple to use and enabled by default. If you want to customize the settings, simply go to your Protection settings tab:

Ransomware protection

Ransomware protection is included in Malwarebytes Premium. It’s simple to use, because once you install the Malwarebytes software, it searches for ransomware while you scan for viruses, Trojans, and other malware.

As with viruses and malware, if ransomware threats are found, you’ll receive a report asking if you want to remove them. Once you confirm you want to remove the threats, Malwarebytes will clean it up and restore your privacy to the previous security.

In our testing, we found the ransomware protection feature easy to use, as it was like running the regular virus scan. It still only took a matter of seconds, and we were notified with a report that no items were detected.

Bonus features

There are two bonus features you can get with Malwarebytes, depending on which plan you opt for.

• The Malwarebytes VPN comes with the Plus plan, giving you access to over 500 encrypted servers across the world.
• Identity theft protection comes with the Ultimate plan, giving you dark web monitoring, credit reporting, and $2 million in identity theft insurance.

Malwarebytes test results

In order to make sure products are performing at the level they should be, we conduct a series of in-house tests as well as scour trusted third-party testers to see how Malwarebytes performs in real life.

Scan speed

• Result: Very fast

Malwarebytes was one of the fastest antivirus scans we tested, coming in at under two minutes for a full-scan. We consider less than 20 minutes to be really good, so this blew us out of the water.

Scan type	Time spent
Quick scan	5 seconds
Full scan	1 minute and 45 seconds

Naturally, we were concerned whether it was doing an actual good job since it was going so fast, but were happy that it found some residual files from a sketchy product we tested, which Norton and Windows Defender both did not find.

It also didn't slouch on the number of files it looked at, coming in at roughly 4,000 files for the quick scan and a whopping 237,000 for the full scan.

EICAR test results

• Result: 3/3

The European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research (EICAR) provides a series of uber helpful tools in order to test if your antivirus is working properly. Many of these tools are safe files that are made to appear malicious, so any properly functioning antivirus software would protect you from them.

We put Malwarebytes to the EICAR test and it performed beautifully, coming in with a perfect 3/3 score.

Test	Malwarebytes score
Malware detection	Pass
Drive-by malware downloads	Pass
Phishing pages detection	Pass

Test results as of 08/08/2024.

The first two tests are different ways a website can get you to download malicious files. In both cases, Malwarebytes blocked the downloads flawlessly.

After we bypassed the block manually, we ran the scan again with the "malicious" file on our computer, and sure enough, Malwarebytes caught it.

For the phishing page detection test, we had to download the Malwarebytes Browser Guard, but it was able to block the page. In fact, it blocked all the EICAR pages, something we didn't face with Norton.

AV-TEST results

• Result: Middling results, especially on Android

AV-TEST is a leading third-party antivirus testing agency that rigorously tests all of the popular antivirus software. Though Malwarebytes was not included in their most recent test cycles, it has been tested on both Windows and Android platforms before.

Test type	Windows 11 score	macOS Monterey score	Android 8 score
Protection	5.5/6	N/A	5/6
Performance	5.5/6	N/A	6/6
Usability	6/6	N/A	3/6
Date	October 2023	N/A	July 2020
Link to test	Link	N/A	Link

While the scores Malwarebytes received aren't the worst, especially on Windows, we would prefer to see a perfect score — especially when it comes to your security online.

On Windows, Malwarebytes lost a few points in Protection because it received a 98.4% result from the protection test, which is less than the industry average of 99.2%. The good news is Malwarebytes caught up with its October score, which reached the industry average of 99.2%.

It received the same overall score in performance, mostly because it was 6% to 10% slower to install frequently-used apps and launch standard software while running the scan.

The Android test was a bit of a different story. It actually had much higher scores than industry standard in protection, coming in at 98.9% compared to 96.9%. This was an older test done in July 2020, so we wonder if AV-TEST is less harsh on scores nowadays.

But it did only okay in usability, which measures how many false positives the software finds. Malwarebytes came up with a total of 3 false positives in its test, which is exactly industry average.

Finally, Malwarebytes was never tested for their Mac tools. This isn't necessarily a knock against them, since third-party testing is expensive, but this could show that they're not as concerned with their Mac perception.

AV-Comparatives test results

• Result: Middling scores

AV-Comparatives is another leading and trusted antivirus testing company. Malwarebytes has gone through all four of their main tests, though it's been a few years now.

Test type	Mobile security	Real-world protection	Malware protection	Performance impact (Lower is better)
Score	99.3%	99.0%	99.81%	7.2
Platform	Android	Windows	Windows	Windows
Date	May 2022	July - October 2022	September 2022	October 2022
Link	Link	Link	Link	Link

While all these scores look good on paper, Malwarebytes actually came mid-to-last place on all four reports:

• Mobile security: Came in 10th place with seven false positives (compared to the 0 the top-ranked products flagged).
• Real-world protection: Came second-to-last, beating only ESET. The three top-rated software — Avast, AVG, and G Data — all got a perfect 100% protection rate.
• Malware protection: Again came second-to-last, beating Trend Micro this time, which received a score of 97.41%. The top-rated software again received perfect 100% scores, which were Avast, AVG, G Data, and McAfee.
• Performance impact: Malwarebytes came in 13th out of 17 places in performance. The top place this round went to K7, which only impacted performance by a small 0.6 points.

One interesting thing to note is Malwarebytes was again not present in AV-Comparatives most recent tests. We wonder if Malwarebytes is pulling back from third-party testing because of their middling results.

SE Labs results

• Result: 91%

Finally, SE Labs is the last third-party test site on our list. Based in the U.K, SE Labs releases quarterly antivirus performance reports for both consumers and enterprises.

The last time Malwarebytes was tested was in the first quarter of 2021.

Test type	Home Anti-Malware Protection
Total accuracy rating	91%
Date	2021 Q1
Link	Link

Unfortunately, Malwarebytes came dead last in this test, with the first place software coming out with a perfect 100% score.

While Malwarebyte's Legitimate Accuracy Rating was a nice 98%, its Protection Accuracy Rating brought it down a lot, only scoring 78%. 

Malwarebytes compatibility

You can use Malwarebytes Premium on any of these devices and platforms:

• Microsoft Windows
• macOS
• Chromebook
• Android
• iOS (iPhone, iPad)

You won’t have trouble finding a system or device that’s compatible with Malwarebytes. You can also use it with another antivirus software, which could be a bonus if you’re being extra cautious about online security. You also get access to its advanced antivirus protection with the Browser Guard extension.

Malwarebytes customer support

Malwarebytes has a support page with different options you may be having issues with, such as billing, installing, adding devices, and requesting a refund. There is also a chat function you can use to ask questions and get automated answers.

If you ask the bot to connect you to a live agent, they'll oblige. We were connected relatively quickly, but didn't receive a helpful answer.

We asked them what kind of phishing protection features Malwarebytes offered, since it's advertised on their pricing page that all levels of their product come with it. The agent didn't have an answer for me, and just sent me a link to a help guide talking about general phishing protection.

Since we tested the phishing protection of their Browser Guard extension and know it worked, we were expecting them to point us that way. Instead, it was obvious they didn't know what to do when not asked a question from their script.

Top alternatives

Malwarebytes has its strengths, like top third-party test scores and great price, but its not without its weaknesses. If Malwarebytes has some deal breakers, we suggest you consider one of these options instead:

Malwarebytes FAQs

Bottom line: Is Malwarebytes good?

We found Malwarebytes to be a good and extremely fast antivirus tool, but weren't impressed with its third-party test results.

Overall, Malwarebytes is a trusted antivirus that’s good for the average online user. When you want something that won’t take much time and focuses on removing malware and other online threats, Malwarebytes may be a perfect choice. With high scores in virus detection, you can rest easy knowing your device is protected from numerous online threats.

If you’re a Mac user and want more than a quick scan option, you should look elsewhere. Currently, Malwarebytes doesn’t offer a full scan feature for macOS. You also won’t get a firewall with this software on Mac or Windows, which could be a deal breaker depending on your security needs.

If you’re looking for antivirus and web protection that offers more cybersecurity features, check out our list of the best antivirus software for more options.

Or if you like to compare antivirus side-by-side, check out some of our in-depth comparison articles:

• TotalAV vs. Malwarebytes
• Avast vs. Malwarebytes
• AVG vs. Malwarebytes